in mercy and depravity
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Taking place while Koji was in a coma, he can't distinguish between dreams, nightmares, and reality…


**fandom: Zetsuai**  
 **title: in mercy and depravity**  
 **pairing: koji + izumi**  
 **rating: pg**  
 **Description – Taking place while Koji was in a coma, he can't distinguish between dreams, nightmares, and reality…**

 **Disclaimer – Zetsuai isn't mine.**

 **in mercy and depravity**  
 **By miyamoto yui**

 _I have lost all sense of color.  
I have lost all sense of time._

Won't you turn around for me? Won't you face me anymore? Is there something that you don't want to share with me? Why are you running away from me?

I have often wondered why do my thoughts always derail and come back to you. It is so one-tracked. It is more various and convoluted as the JR System on both sides of this country.  
Why must I always try to find you in everything and everywhere I go?

I do not need you. I didn't need you before.

And yet, my thoughts cannot lie to me, they lead me back to you.

 _This isn't gravity. It is obsession.  
It is necessity.  
It is my life within your hands._

And as this desire builds, it is something that I cannot control anymore. It overcomes everything, even reason. The apathy that I have tried to stray away from is overwhelming. I always tend to blame myself for everything, but was I too strong? Was I too aggressive? Did I do something to make you scared?  
If I did everything right and I didn't do anything wrong, why do you punish me with your memory?

 _You're not here but you are here over and over killing me._

I even fear going to sleep, because if I find you there, I don't want to ever wake up.

And still, I am attracted to you? Isn't just an image I built of you inside of my heart? I wonder about that sometimes…

If you felt so guilty, why am I living the terms of the punishment?

I don't know what to do about myself. I am becoming self-destructive again. My heart hurts and I cannot let anyone know why.  
I don't want to explain anything. I don't want anyone to know that I am really this weak.

Even if I am humble enough to acknowledge this, I don't want to say anything to anyone. I don't want anyone knowing how much power you had over me.

 _Empty me out.  
Rip my heart clear away from me. I can function better that way. You already filled it with nothing but you._

 _Take what is yours, you are selfish anyway._  
 _I give it to you for you to feast on, I am martyred that way._

Deeper and deeper, I regress to that person I was before. It was the one that didn't trust people: The one who couldn't say anything to anyone because he was ashamed of his own tears.  
Though I tell myself that I will be all right and that this is a part of life, I wanted to be nice. I wanted to be fair as I'd always been.

So why, if I had played fair, do I feel so cheated?

And the worst is that I don't regret it. Because you gave me a confidence I had never known, I was able to learn to fly.  
But in doing so, I had become someone that was far ahead of others even though we were on the same road. Little by little, not because of arrogance but out of determination, I became the person I wanted to be.

 _In this place, I found myself alone however._

 _The place that you had promised to keep me from, you plunged me there with your hands. You strangled my head into the deep blue ocean, which I had thought was the sky._

 _I can barely feel my wings anymore._  
 _I fell out of my own unending desire for you._

And you let me know how silly I was to believe that someone like me could find what my heart had always wanted. Then, at the moment you turned your back on me, I realized that experience and dreams were on two different realms. They didn't really intermingle in the real world.

An experience is momentary, which works as a stepping stone.  
A dream was something that would last your whole life within your heart. And then you could move on to the next one.

I felt so sick to my stomach at all these dizzying thoughts that I began to throw up.

Days later, when I went to the doctor, I wondered, "Why was my body rebelling against me? Wasn't I getting better because I didn't have anxiety attacks anymore? Wasn't I the one that said I wouldn't cry?"

My body did for me. Not through my eyes, but through every pore that went unnoticed.

As I laid on the white bed with the doctor touching my side, I winced in pain. Despite my inner protests, my eyes watered in response. And knowing my tolerance for pain, I wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't have a feeling that there was something wrong.

 _I am swimming and I don't know where to go._

 _Without a reaction, why did you watch me die so quietly?_

 _I couldn't shout out because I was so shocked. Surely, you would never do that to me. I trusted you. Surely, because I had believed in you._

 _Yet, this wasn't a dream. It was reality._  
 _You watched me without saying a word._

And that word 'love' that I didn't associate with 'cruelty' ('torture and pain' but not downright 'merciless') instantaneously became one.

I had always wondered why some people went with others who were not good for them, who didn't make them 'better' people. Now I know:

 _At the most important moments, you chose between two things - yourself or your need for that person you 'love'._

 _It wasn't about selfishness or selflessness anymore._  
 _It was about giving yourself with no point of return or coming back to yourself without the person who led you there._

I chose myself.

Not because I wanted to survive.  
I knew I was better than just 'being satisfied'. I would always want more. To become more. I wouldn't ever settle to becoming second to any person or thing because I myself wouldn't you put in that position.

 _This is the extent of my selfishness. And though no one will ever admit it, deep within each human, everyone craves this as well._

You were always my priority.

And if you let me go voluntarily, I cannot fight alone. If I was just a burden to you, why didn't you tell me so? Out of compassion? Surely, it wasn't out of my feelings. For if it was, you would have said point-blank, as I had asked you to.

 _I fought by myself for all my life, you see? So, I couldn't do it for two._

And if you think this a brutal thing to hear, at least you heard it in songs and you didn't have to wait for months for just a word of response. It must have been fun to watch me sing to someone who wasn't there. It's no better than a mental patient talking to colors in a white mental institution.  
I hope I was amusing to you because I certainly was entertained for quite a time, finding myself making excuses like a battered wife who kept saying, 'It's okay. It's only this once."

 _Once...Twice...  
These numbers accumulate._

 _I am sure that even the gods laughed at me for my prayers about you._

And here I am locked away in my room unable to open my mouth for anyone. I go about my day doing what I must but when I come home, I have to sleep because my body is breaking slowly and the doctor couldn't tell me why. He couldn't give me medicine to 'make me better'.

And for a few moments, just like before, I didn't want to 'be better'. Yet this wasn't suicide or giving up.

 _It was my own body choosing for itself, cutting itself off from my mind and my will._

Everyday I struggle to stay alive and I seductively smile at everyone I see. But deep inside, I am scared of why my body rebelled against me. But I did take care of it.  
Again, this cycle begins once more.

 _I am fighting myself all over again._

Suffocating, I listen to my own voice on the radio. I laugh so loudly as the rain pours outside to drown me out.

Though I turn away from the mirror, I feel the tears falling down my face.

Ironically, in letting everything go,  
I am trapped within my own words.

Then, when I am about to let go of myself, I hear your voice, "Koji. I'm here."  
Our voices intermingle in mercy and depravity.

 _Yet I loathe myself for still wanting you so much,  
my mortal wound and my grace._

As I open my blurry eyes,  
I wonder if I am still dreaming…  
Or am I already awake?

 **Owari./The End.**

+++  
Author's note –

This wasn't supposed to make any sense, but I really wanted to write about Koji for quite some time now. It is in a simple form yet stream-of-conscious structure.  
I hope that at least the feelings were honest. If you could feel them, then it could ease my temporary insanity…

Thank you for reading.

Love always,  
Yui

4/9/2007 8:24:27 AM – LA  
4/10/07 12:24 AM - Tokyo


End file.
